Residents in the Maplewood area wrote a letter expressing their concern about the storage of radioactive material near an
elementary and middle school, day cares, churches, a park and a densely packed neighborhood.

ACT&T president Randy Prejean said
the company has no plan to store radioactive material at the office in
Maplewood and that
the chemicals stored at the facility now are stable, non-emitting
materials and only become radioactive when used in the plants
to run the tests.

Concerned residents wrote in the letter that they “feel that this perception of radioactive materials will affect us and our
ability to attract business.”

According to the DEQ’s website, the materials used can consist of Iridium-192, Cobalt-60, and other isotopes.

“I understand the concern, I really do, but we haven’t even filed for a license yet,” he said. “There were never any plans
for that at the Center Circle office. The license that we are going to apply for, we were going to have our office that is
on an industrial parkway in Baton Rouge put on it.”

Prejean said a facility is being built south of Sulphur to house materials in a rural area near local industries.

“In the future, we may do some work on
site and that’s why we decided to build an office south of town where
there aren’t
residential areas or anything around,” he said. “We can’t just
come into a subdivision and do whatever we want; (the Louisiana
Department of Environmental Quality) has to approve everything,
and I wouldn’t do that anyway.”

Prejean said the Sulphur office is
licensed to store non-emitting materials, but everything is “closely
monitored and regulated.”

“We currently have some equipment that stores materials, but it’s a turn the switch on kind of thing, it has to be activated,”
he said. “It doesn’t emit anything and the DEQ has approved everything that we have.”